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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25771318">I Will Find Him!</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freedoms_Champion/pseuds/Freedoms_Champion'>Freedoms_Champion</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Man of Steel (2013)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Kal is missing, Post-Movie, This was supposed to be crack, Zod lived, Zod will find him, Zod's thoughts on humans, guard dog Zod, it went somewhere else</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:33:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,440</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25771318</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freedoms_Champion/pseuds/Freedoms_Champion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Zod has finally gotten used to life on Earth. He is the last soldier of Krypton, but he still has a purpose in life: to guard Kal-El, the last of his people. He might not be doing the best job, since Kal has ordered him to look after the human Martha, but it could be worse.</p><p>Until Kal fails to come home on time. Now Zod is on a quest to find him!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Will Find Him!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Zod wasn’t paying much attention to the human woman. The way he saw it, his time was much better spent planning how to preserve the last scraps of Krypton, but it made Kal happy to know his human mother was safe.</p><p>It was a boring job, but at least it was something to do. If Zod had nothing to do, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to retain his sanity.</p><p>“Strange. Clark should have been back by now,” Martha mused from the kitchen. “It’s not like him to be so late.”</p><p>Zod got to his feet. The human clothes Kal had given him to wear were uncomfortably foreign and billowed around him with every movement. He made his way to the kitchen with deliberate motions. The gravity of the human planet was vastly different from Krypton and Zod had quickly learned to move carefully to avoid damaging the fragile human dwellings.</p><p>“I will find him, Martha,” he vowed. “No matter what stands in my way, I will find Kal-El.”</p><p>Without waiting for a reply, he stepped out the door and launched himself into the sky. In his opinion, Earth was inferior to Krypton in nearly every way, but the ability to fly wasn’t part of that. He couldn’t help a smile as wind rushed around him.</p><p>The human clothes flapped against his skin, but he put them out of his mind. The last son of Krypton had gone missing. As the last soldier, Zod’s only purpose in life was to defend Kal-El. He had to find him.</p><p>He stopped rising through the air at an altitude slightly below the flight path of planes. There, he opened his hearing. It had been painful when he first arrived here, but Zod had trained his entire life to hone his senses. Finding them more sensitive than usual had only been a handicap before he adjusted. Additional training with Kal had ensured that he would be able to find the younger Kryptonian anywhere on the planet.</p><p>Sounds reached him: cars, voices, and heartbeats. There were billions of people on Earth and the longer Zod listened, the more he could hear. Machines clattered and music pounded away in countless varieties. Nowhere did Zod hear Kal’s voice.</p><p>He worried, as always, but not enough to act. Not yet. Zod sharpened his hearing farther, closing his eyes to aid his focus. Now the noise felt like a solid thing, pressing against his head and quivering along his bones. His experience of humans was limited, since Kal had very low expectations of his ability to fit in, but he was beginning to learn the difference between males and females based on breathing patterns. Most of them, he could dismiss with little effort.</p><p>Finally, he found the right person. As Kal was constantly telling him, there was no need to break things when he could ask for help. Once, that would have been equal to failure, but Zod had been forced to adjust a lot of standards since he had arrived on Earth.</p><p>He lowered his hearing again and opened his eyes to find that he had drifted toward the ground by nearly 200 feet. He pressed his lips together to suppress a groan of frustration. It was taking too long to sharpen his multitasking skills.</p><p>No matter now. He had more important things to do.</p><p> </p><p>“Zod, there’s no need to overreact,” the woman said. Zod remembered belatedly her name was Lois Lane. Such a strange name, but that was the human custom. He would have been happier to know her House and lineage.</p><p>“I’m sure Clark just got busy with a story and forgot to call Martha. It’s not like there are a lot of things that can hurt him.”</p><p>“Be that as it may, I must find him,” Zod answered. He struggled not to scowl at Lois Lane. Kal had given him strict orders to treat her politely.</p><p>A human walked past briskly, pushing a metal basket on tiny wheels. Zod watched closely to make sure he truly had no interest in the woman and then dismissed him from thought.</p><p>“All I know is that Clark was assigned a new story today. Something about crime rates in Gotham, which is really old news, unless Perry dug up a new angle. Crime rates in Gotham have been soaring for years, no matter what the police try. Just stay calm, ok, Zod? Regular criminals, even Gotham criminals, can’t do anything to him. I have to finish shopping, if you don’t mind.”</p><p>“Go ahead,” Zod replied without interest. He made a polite bow and left the human market. Now he had a place to look!</p><p>True, he had no idea where Gotham might be, though he had an idea that it wasn’t far. Also true, he wasn’t sure what humans considered a crime, which limited his ability to judge danger, but that wasn’t important. Kal had gone somewhere humans thought was dangerous and failed to return in a timely fashion. This was what Zod existed to correct.</p><p>He flew above Metropolis and sharpened his hearing again. This time, he tuned out most of the chatter and focused simply on mentions of Gotham. Before long, he locked onto a news broadcast and headed toward it.</p><p> </p><p>“What a miserable place,” Zod said to himself as he hovered above the city of Gotham. Of all the human cities he had seen, which were few, this one was the darkest. Clouds covered the sky and the buildings were all dark materials. Perhaps it was from the grime carried in the air, he thought, tasting numerous types of smoke and exhaust with every breath.</p><p>There were more sirens howling through this city, he noted. The peacekeepers of Gotham were working hard. Zod wished them success, in his heart. He might behave as if he cared for nothing, but it was difficult to harden himself against the troubles of humans who shared his purpose. Zod only had one charge to defend and host of skills to do it with, but humans were spread thin defending each other.</p><p>He shook the thoughts away and focused again. If Kal was in the city, Zod would find him.</p><p>The sound of Gotham that struck him the most was screaming. From every part of the city, voices were raised in terror or pain, echoing plaintively from the dark walls of alleys for only few to hear. Zod cared very little for the troubles of humans, but those screams called to his mind the destruction of Krypton and how he had wept to see it before being sent to the Phantom Zone.</p><p>How could humans live in such a place? It bothered Zod enough that his concentration slipped, and he found himself pondering instead of searching.</p><p>Angry with himself, he redoubled his efforts.</p><p>“I will find you, Kal-El,” he said to himself.</p><p>“That’s nice of you, Zod.”</p><p>It was Kal! Zod almost dropped from the sky in relief. Casting about, he located Kal, standing on the balcony of a tower that dominated the skyline. It was as dark as the rest of Gotham but gave the impression that it brooded watchfully over the city.</p><p>Kal’s blue eyes sparkled with amusement as Zod touched down on the balcony.</p><p>“I owe you an apology. I forgot to call Mom went my interview ran late,” Kal said. “There’s nothing to worry about; but I will be staying here for dinner, so Mom might not see me until tomorrow. I’ve called her and she’s not worried anymore. You can stop looking now.”</p><p>“Obviously, since I’ve found you,” Zod replied. Unsatisfied, he checked Kal for injuries or signs that anyone had attempted to damage him. Finding none, he finally relaxed.</p><p>“What’s bothering you?”</p><p>It still surprised Zod that Kal was so observant. The boy had been raised by humans, deprived of the education he would have gotten as a son of the House of El, but he had developed into a clever and perceptive man. Zod shrugged.</p><p>“Humans are difficult to understand,” he answered vaguely. It still felt like a betrayal of his purpose to admit how this city unsettled him. Krypton had been a harsh world, especially toward the end, but they had never allowed their people to live like this.</p><p>“There are a lot of things about them I’m still working through,” Kal agreed. He offered a sideways smile. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”</p><p>“Don’t go missing,” Zod grumbled. Shaking his head, he bowed to Kal and stepped off the balcony. Now that he knew Kal was safe, it was time to return to his post guarding Martha.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks so much for reading!</p><p>I think that Zod showing up randomly to "protect" Clark would be hilarious.</p><p>Have a safe time!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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